For commentary on student responses to fictional the Northwest Tree Octopus website, see an interview with Donald Leu from the University of Connecticut, "Don't Believe Everything You See on the Internet."
Mitra refers to the importance of SOLE (Self-organized learning environment) where a group of students work around a computer to solve problems and answer questions that matter to them.
How To Create Google Scholar Alerts from the Free Technology for Teachers Blog. Google Scholar is a powerful search tool for students and teachers.
Diagram of Search Engine. Posted by Jakob Voss on Wikimedia Commons
Google has continued to be the dominant search engine with 66.7 percent of use as compared to 15.4 percent for Bing and 13.4 percent for Yahoo. Yet, the Boston Globe reported that reviewers found Bing outperformed Google in video searches while Google remained the top choices for general searches as well as searches related to maps, social media, shopping, and travel.
Visual Search Engines display information in different formats including outline, map, carousel, tag cloud and text. Grokker, Kartoo, Viewzi, SearchMe, and Quintura are popular visual search engines.
The (non-existent) 30-Second Rule. Teachers and students are not allowed to use up to 30 seconds of someone else's music without permission.
Digital Copyright Slider from the American Library Association's Copyright Advisory Network offers a sliding graph that shows what works published in the United States are subject to copyright protection and which are now in the public domain and free for teachers and students to use.
Citizendium is an alternative to Wikipedia seeks to be a trustworthy free encyclopedia. Contributors use real names and "gentle expert oversight" is used to help maintain integrity and reliability.
Teachers writing their own e-books is an emerging trend. See "Teaching Writing It Their Way," by Dave Saltman, Harvard Educational Letter (2012, July/August). Teachers can also involve students in creating digital books and digital materials for classes. Tools and resources include:
ibooks Author
CK-12 Foundations Flex Book
Digital Textbook Playbook from the Federal Communications Commission
Researchers: Cyberbullying Not as Widespread, Common as Believed features a paper presented in 2012 at the American Psychological Association conference that cyberbullying is "a low-prevalence phenomenon, which has not increased over time and has not created many 'new' victims and bullies, that is, children and youth who are not also involved in some form of traditional bullying."
It Gets Better offers videos from LGBT youth about their struggles and successes in overcoming prejudice and discrimination.
See also the Fair, Accurate, Inclusive and Respectful Education Act which mandates California schools teach about the contributions of women, people of color, and other historically underrepresented groups. On January 1, 2012, the state updated these guidelines to end the exclusion of people with disabilities and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people from history and social studies lessons.
Critical Analysis of Computers and the Internet
The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains, Nicholas Carr, 2011.
Eli Pariser. The Filter Bubble: What the Internet is Hiding from You, Penguin Press, 2011.
In The Filter Bubble, Eli Pariser shows that the process of searching for information online a much more problematic activity that is commonly assumed. Google’s technology enables “every search to fit the profile of the person making in query” (Halpern, 2011, p. 34). After several searches that establish a baseline of a person’s interests and patterns, Google’s technology predicts what search results someone will find most useful. Such personalized searches mean that even with the same keywords as search terms, different people will get different results, for instance, a search on climate change will produce different results for an environmental activist and an oil company executive. In Pariser’s terms, “there is no standard Google anymore.”
Personalized search advocates cite the utility of getting information one needs more quickly and efficiently. Consumers do not have to wade through less relevant information sites because the computer has done the work for you. You know where to go to get the latest products and services that best fit your needs. But critics worry that personalization distorts democracy’s need for citizens using information to make decisions. Google,’s personalized searches may be directing people to materials and sources that is most likely to reinforce one already established views and perspectives.
Chapter 5........................Teaching Information Literacy and Digital Citizenship
Key Topics
Digital
Literacy
Website Evaluation......
Internet Facts and Figures.....
Search Engines
Online Research by Students
Copyright Rules
....
....Using Wikipedia
e-Books, e-Readers,
Homegrown Digital Texts
Special Topic Page
Digital Citizenship
Cyberbullying and
Bullying in Schools
Digital Literacy and Website Evaluation
See Special Topic Page for definitions and strategies
Student Research: The Right Information at the Right Time from Edutopia, December 19, 2012.
Website Evaluation Strategies
5 Ws of Website Evaluation: Who, What, When, Where, Why
11 Hilarious Hoax Sites to Test Website Evaluation from the TeachBytes blog.
Internet Facts and Figures
The Size of the World Wide Web (the Internet) updated every day
Search Engines and Student Research Online
Advent of Google Means We Must Rethink Our Approach to Education, by Sugata Mitra, June 17, 2013. Mitra is a professor of educational technology at Newcastle University and winner of the $1 million TED Prize 2013.
How To Create Google Scholar Alerts from the Free Technology for Teachers Blog. Google Scholar is a powerful search tool for students and teachers.
Now You Can Ask Google Search to Compare, Filter and Play explains new ways for the search engine to support more open-ended searches.
Why Teachers Worry about Students Online Research Skills outlines a 2012 survey from the Pew Internet & American Life Project., "How Teens Do Research in the Digital World."
Google
Top 15 Most Popular Search Engines (September 2016)
Google has continued to be the dominant search engine with 66.7 percent of use as compared to 15.4 percent for Bing and 13.4 percent for Yahoo. Yet, the Boston Globe reported that reviewers found Bing outperformed Google in video searches while Google remained the top choices for general searches as well as searches related to maps, social media, shopping, and travel.
12 Ways to Be More Search Savvy from MindShift
For the latest information on search engine usage, see the site, Search Engine Watch
Try Handwrite from Google that lets you write search terms with your fingers on a mobile device.
Visual Search Engines display information in different formats including outline, map, carousel, tag cloud and text. Grokker, Kartoo, Viewzi, SearchMe, and Quintura are popular visual search engines.
For a comparison, see Search Engine Features Chart from the website Search Engine Showdown.
Kid-Friendly Search Tools
Copyright and Copyright Laws
Finding Copyright Friendly Photos for the Google Image Generation
The (non-existent) 30-Second Rule. Teachers and students are not allowed to use up to 30 seconds of someone else's music without permission.
Digital Copyright Slider from the American Library Association's Copyright Advisory Network offers a sliding graph that shows what works published in the United States are subject to copyright protection and which are now in the public domain and free for teachers and students to use.
Children's Internet Protection Act
Social Bookmarking
Using Diigo in the Classroom
Should Students Use Wikipedia? from the blog, Wired Science.
Big List of Social Bookmarking and Networking Sites
Using Wikipedia in the Classroom
Wikipedia: Statistics
A Teacher's Guide to Wikipedia from Edudemic
47 Alternatives to Wikipedia from Neatorama (February 23, 2015).
Wikipedia's Global Breakdown: Number of Edits
For a perspective on the use of Wikipedia by teachers and students, see The History Teacher and Wikipedia: Teaching and Learning in an Era of "Instant Historying" from the journal, The History Teacher.
Citizendium is an alternative to Wikipedia seeks to be a trustworthy free encyclopedia. Contributors use real names and "gentle expert oversight" is used to help maintain integrity and reliability.e-Books and Homegrown Digital Texts
A Next-Generation Digital Book, Mike Matas, Ted Talk (March 2011) based on the book Our Choice, Al Gore's sequel to An Inconvenient Truth.
Interactive eBook Apps: The Reinvention of Reading and Interactivity reviews the development of increased interaction within digital book designs and content.
Teachers writing their own e-books is an emerging trend. See "Teaching Writing It Their Way," by Dave Saltman, Harvard Educational Letter (2012, July/August). Teachers can also involve students in creating digital books and digital materials for classes. Tools and resources include:
From Paper to Pixel: Digital Textbooks and Florida Schools. Marcia Mardis, et. al. Florida State University PALM Center, 2010.
Can e-Readers Help Reluctant Readers Enjoy Books? from EdTEch Magazine.
e-Book Reading Apps:
An Assessment of College Students' Attitudes Toward Using an Online Textbook from the Interdisciplinary Journal of e-Learning and Learning Objects (2013).
Kids's eBook Reading Nearly Doubled Since 2010, Scholastic Reading Survey Finds (January 2013).
E-Book Reader Ownership Doubles in Six Months (as of May 2011), reports the Pew Internet & American Life Project. For more recent research, see The Rise of e-Reading from Pew Internet Libraries.
In 2011, 8 percent own tablet computers such as the iPad, although the growth of this technology has not been as dramatic as that of e-readers.
Cyberbullying and Bullying in Schools
See Special Topic Page on Digital Citizenship
Text of a 2010 Massachusetts Bullying Prevention law.
No Name Calling Week, January 20-24, 2014.
Cyberbullying Study One of the First to Research Elementary School-Aged Youth reported by the Christian Science Monitor (July 25, 2013).
For complete summary, see Cyberbullying among 11,700 Elementary School Students, 2010-2012.
For current research and additional information, go the the Cyberbullying Research Center
Resolution on Confronting Bullying and Harassment, National Council of Teachers of English, 2011
http://www.cybersmart.gov.au/Young%20Kids/Hectors%20World/THINK.aspx
New York's Cuomo Signs Cyberbullying Bill into Law, Education News, July 17, 2012.
A. S. King and C. J. Bott Talk about Bullying features a dialog between a young adult author and an expert on bullying prevention.
Researchers: Cyberbullying Not as Widespread, Common as Believed features a paper presented in 2012 at the American Psychological Association conference that cyberbullying is "a low-prevalence phenomenon, which has not increased over time and has not created many 'new' victims and bullies, that is, children and youth who are not also involved in some form of traditional bullying."
Boston vs. Bullies is an initiative from the Sports Museum in Boston, Massachusetts featuring local sports figures speaking out against bullying.
For Most Bullied Gay Kids, Things Do "Get Better," Study Finds. In this study of 4000 teens in England, half of the gay and lesbian teens said they had been bullied in school, but that bullied dropped dramatically once they got older.
Professor Garfield Learning Lab Cyberbullying offers interactive activities to explore the issue and create effective responses.
It Gets Better offers videos from LGBT youth about their struggles and successes in overcoming prejudice and discrimination.
See also the Fair, Accurate, Inclusive and Respectful Education Act which mandates California schools teach about the contributions of women, people of color, and other historically underrepresented groups. On January 1, 2012, the state updated these guidelines to end the exclusion of people with disabilities and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people from history and social studies lessons.
The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains, Nicholas Carr, 2011.
Eli Pariser. The Filter Bubble: What the Internet is Hiding from You, Penguin Press, 2011.
In The Filter Bubble, Eli Pariser shows that the process of searching for information online a much more problematic activity that is commonly assumed. Google’s technology enables “every search to fit the profile of the person making in query” (Halpern, 2011, p. 34). After several searches that establish a baseline of a person’s interests and patterns, Google’s technology predicts what search results someone will find most useful. Such personalized searches mean that even with the same keywords as search terms, different people will get different results, for instance, a search on climate change will produce different results for an environmental activist and an oil company executive. In Pariser’s terms, “there is no standard Google anymore.”
Personalized search advocates cite the utility of getting information one needs more quickly and efficiently. Consumers do not have to wade through less relevant information sites because the computer has done the work for you. You know where to go to get the latest products and services that best fit your needs. But critics worry that personalization distorts democracy’s need for citizens using information to make decisions. Google,’s personalized searches may be directing people to materials and sources that is most likely to reinforce one already established views and perspectives.